A Crown of Twelve Stars
by WittyRejoinder
Summary: She was just your average Supernatural fan. Then, she got sucked into the show and had to adapt. Now, she's finding out she's got some kind of bond with these angels and is meant for 'greater things' in heaven than on earth. Mary didn't sign up for this soulmate/destiny crap, but getting to meet Dean Winchester is kind of totally worth it. SI/OC. Feat. Copious amounts of Crowley.
1. THE START OF EVERYTHING

_The Start of Everything_

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you today," I exclaimed, a warm smile blooming on my face. "Will you be staying for dinner?"

I set my book down as I stood, meeting my husband half way with an innocent peck on the lips.

"I'll be staying indefinitely," he said idly, leading me towards the small bar in our living room with his hand at the small of my back, clearly itching to get his precious fix of Craig. He poured us both a glass and savoured his first sip as he spoke. "Contracts to review and incompetent morons to manage, business as usual, really."

"It's not easy being king," I soothed, my voice infused with just the easy kind of sympathy that I knew he would appreciate. "You deserve a break."

A wicked grin stole over his features, his fingers brushing over a sliver of skin between my shirt and my pyjama shorts.

"Trying to butter me up, darling?" He asked silkily, stirring his glass idly as he watched me with dark eyes. "You know you don't need any tricks to get me into bed."

Five years since we'd met and been subsequently married and he still delighted in attempting to corrupt my supposedly incorruptible soul. He might not have succeeded yet in that undertaking, but he'd definitely taught me a thing or two about temptation (par the course, I supposed, when you had a demonic lover) and the tone of promise in his voice made me feel warm all over.

He had once told me that be became a demon by selling his soul as a human for three inches more in, ahem, length and that kind of devotion to sex had certainly carried through to his present self. I thought it was rather ironic; my husband selling his soul for sex and me selling my soul for marriage. I'd been a sixteen going on seventeen year old virgin in a pretty crazy situation and the first and best solution I had come up with in regards to my circumstances (and that aching, aching loneliness) had been to get married. And not to just anyone, either.

So, I went to a crossroads and summoned a demon. My soul and limited knowledge of the future in exchange for a husband of great wealth who would be kind and generous, even if only to me, and exceed human limitation to keep me happy and was powerful enough keep me safe from any threat, supernatural or otherwise, that might put me at risk.

I offered my soul for ten years of wedded bliss, and foreknowledge to sweeten the pot a little bit. I mean, I'd suddenly appeared in this world and was promptly attacked by a frickin vampire and was rescued before being turned by a hunter I immediately recognised as Gordon Walker from _Supernatural_. Being suddenly transported to another world with no social security number or driver's license was horrible. My brand new phone didn't even work. I had to do _something_.

Summoning a crossroads demon is really difficult. You need your own picture, graveyard dirt, and the bone of a black cat (or, apparently, the milk of a black cow, which was the route I went down) to do it. Adding on to that, you need a crossroads you can bury something in the centre of, no concrete, basically, that has yarrow flowers planted around it. A tall order for someone with no money and suddenly de-aged to a teenager.

(Yeah, that iPhone X I'd just spent half a pay check on? Not compatible with the year 2004.)

Gordon, for all that he was a total hard-ass hunter in the show, was nice enough to see to it that I got home safely after he slew the nest of vampires that had taken me hostage. And by 'got home safely' I mean that after I hammed up the whole amnesia act, he called 911 and, due to me having regressed to the age I had been in 2004, attempts were made to find my parents and when that didn't happen, I was taken into the system. Luck and probably some kind of divine intervention was on my side, and, apparently being an 'absolute sweetheart' through no intentional effort of my own, I got adopted directly before being taken to a foster home.

My temporary foster home, thankfully, had internet access and my foster parents were very pleasant and got me hooked up with a library card. Looking up how to summon a crossroads demon was pretty simple with that kind of access; and when I found instructions that said the milk of a black cow could be substituted for the much harder to acquire bone of a black cat, I decided to try that first.

It worked.

I summoned Crowley himself with the bait of foreknowledge and the curiosity of a human asking for him specifically. I asked him for my dream husband and, since I'd made it a point to specify that he should surpass human limitation and be powerful to protect me from all supernatural and non-supernatural threats, it followed that Crowley, being the most powerful being he himself could command and wanting what foreknowledge I was offering for himself, stepped up to the role.

He took care of things with my foster family by posing as my uncle come to take guardianship of me and then, rather horrifically, we were promptly wed in a church by a priest with documents falsifying permission from my non-existent parents. I didn't care; I'd been a twenty-nine-going-on-thirty year old virgin shut-in trapped in her teenage body (and my teenage body had been stout despite my height of 5'7" even then with an only slightly better metabolism, so it wasn't even that great an 'upgrade'), and thusly wasn't fussed about age differences or such.

Well, a little. My husband had indulged me in waiting until I'd reached the age of consent before consummating our marriage because I was horrified at the idea of sleeping with someone physically old enough to be my father at age 16. He indulged me in everything, though.

I wasn't in love with him per se, and I knew he certainly wasn't anything as maudlin as 'in love' with me, but married life suited us perfectly.

I didn't care who he slept with as long as he didn't bring me diseases and, after turning my world upside down while cheerfully deflowering me, he made sure that I never felt neglected or unwanted.

"You know," I said when I'd caught my breath when we were done, my dark hair fanned out over the pillow as I lay there, chest heaving under the thin sheet with exertion. "You never finished your drink."

A short laugh escaped him.

"I was preoccupied."

I was terribly fond of him. Not in love with him, no, but I had lived with him for five years and that's a long time to learn someone, for you to learn each other. To become attached.

"Do you want dinner, honey?" I asked, a snicker working its way up my throat at how he made a face at the endearment.

"Only if it's your cooking, _sweetheart_," he returned sarcastically – it was funny hearing the saccharine endearment coming from my handsome devil's mouth.

He looked over at me with mild interest, the same mild interest that usually preceded-

"It's the same," he murmured, a sharp look of amusement cutting across his face.

-him telling me that. Always 'it's the same.' My pure, pure soul. Pure despite my selling it, despite giving into temptation and sleeping with a demon. (Sleeping with a demon _a lot_). A constant object of fascination for him, the purest soul he had ever seen (according to him), somehow resisting even the most damning methods of corruption.

"I suppose," I started thoughtfully, the corner of my mouth turning up in a cheeky smirk, "we'll just have to try again, then, won't we?"

The rest of the week passed in a similarly delicious manner and then the fucking Winchesters broke into our house.

"…to take this thing to Lucifer and empty it into his face."

I'd woken up to the commotion and decided to find Crowley to figure out what was going on. Well, I found him, alright. And he wasn't alone.

"I'm sorry," I blurted out, self-consciously crossing my arms over my chest uncomfortably because, well, I'd gone in search of my husband in my pyjamas – and a comfortable v-neck sleep shirt with no bra and soft cotton shorts were hardly appropriate for company. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

It was very evident that I was interrupting, if the flash of annoyance on my husband's face was any indicator, and I cringed – not so much because of Crowley's irritation, but rather because suddenly everyone in the room was looking at me and I really, really wished I'd put on a robe or something.

"Who the hell are you?" Dean Winchester demanded, like I was Satan himself parading around in pyjamas.

My cheeks flushed and not because of my state of dress.

"Annie," Crowley said in warning, but I didn't care.

_Dean Winchester_ in the flesh. Wow. I hadn't seen him since I'd started binge watching from season one before I'd been body-swapped with my teenage self from the show's timeline. Talk about a sight for sore eyes.

"Hi," I said, going for a winsome smile and probably failing.

I looked helplessly at Crowley because I wasn't sure what to do.

"She's-" He stopped and then let loose a sharp sigh of irritation. "Hardy Boys, meet my wife."

Stupefied silence followed despite my vague recollection of the episode I had literally walked into telling me that there should have been a little more urgency going on. Or that there had been, before I'd interrupted.

"What?" Sam asked after a moment, as though trying to wrap his head around it. "_What?_"

"Hi," I offered shyly, wishing I was closer to Crowley so I could hide behind him a little.

He looked from me to the Winchesters, his lips narrowing. He looked back.

"Do you still want to take that trip to rescue your flying monkey in distress?" He asked, eyeing me shrewdly.

I knew exactly what he was talking about but didn't understand why-

Oh.

"Yes," I said very quietly, wishing I could just crumple in on myself until nothing was left.

"Right then," Crowley said, clapping his hands together with energy he'd been lacking. "How about this, boys: I will give you the Colt and you will introduce it to Lucifer's face, and as a gesture of good will I will give you my wife as insurance."

I nearly choked. Nearly.

"In exchange, you will make very well sure that nothing happens to her – and I mean _nothing_, or Lucifer will be the last of your worries."

Without giving them a chance to reply, really, he turned to me with a look that brooked no argument-

"Go on, darling, pack a bag quickly – don't forget to take your jewellery."

I nodded in confirmation. I certainly wouldn't be forgetting them. My wedding band and my engagement ring were both spelled – the wedding band shielded me from demonic possession and my engagement ring prevented me from being found by angels.

(That had been an add-on after the fact – a necessary one.)

Wearing both on the same finger enabled me to summon Crowley by saying his name. The best way to fulfil our deal – protection at a moment's notice if necessary.

"Yes," I supplied immediately, eager to get the fuck out of there and throw on a jacket or something. "Yes, I'll do that."

"Quickly," he reminded me over the start of the questioning. "Our guests won't be staying long."

I took his advice and fled.

Leaving with the Winchesters was… different. I was so used to making short trips out at my leisure or leaving with Crowley that I didn't know what to do with myself as Dean threw my bag in the trunk, clearly tense, and Sam tried to smooth things over by making some easy conversation.

"So, um, you and Crowley," he began, clearing his throat as Dean started the car, ready to take us god knows where. "How did that happen?"

I shifted uncomfortably where I was sitting in the backseat.

"I, um, I was in a really bad position in my life." Not a lie or stretching of the truth by any means. "I was all alone and had nowhere to go and no one to care for me so… Well, then I was attacked by vampires, you know? A hunter saved me, but I was terrified of something like that happening again. I mean, finding out monsters are real would terrify anyone. So I did my research and did what I could to make sure I would never be in danger again and not be alone anymore to boot."

Sam blinked.

"Wait, wait, wait," Dean said, surprising me because I hadn't thought he would comment though I knew he would listen out of suspicion at least. "You're telling me… you summoned a crossroads demon for what, a relationship?"

I shrugged, but wasn't quite able to look him in the eye.

"I asked for a husband capable of protecting me from any threat and providing for me and keeping me happy," I expanded, making a few vague hand motions as I went. "Seeing as Crowley can't exactly rope someone stronger than him into fulfilling our deal, it made the most sense for him to be that guy."

Dean glanced back at me in the rear-view mirror as he drove, his expression incredulous.

"So, what, you sold your soul for Mr. Right and got a demon instead?" He asked, making me cringe awkwardly. "How long do you have left?"

My heart skipped a beat in the worst way.

"Listen…" I started, swallowing. "Have you ever been alone in the world? With nothing and no one? And – and you have this huge responsibility on your shoulders that you don't know what to do with? I needed someone to be there and I needed protection. I mean the first thing that I remember is getting attacked by a vampire and being saved by a hunter named Gordon. I was scared and I needed help. So I went to the one source I knew would _guarantee_ it."

Dean looked away angrily, clearly not convinced.

"How old are you – Mary, right?" Sam asked, and I fought the urge to duck my head and look away at the way he said it.

"You can call me Anne or Annie, most people do," I told him, and then added, "I'm twenty-one. I'll be twenty-two in September."

Same exchanged a look with Dean, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"How old were you when you, uh, met your – met Crowley?" Dean asked with false lightness.

I really wished we could just move on before I found some way to sink into the seats forever.

"Sixteen, almost seventeen," I offered up reluctantly. "_Anyway_, where are we going? I know Crowley said I'm not to go on any hunts with you, but I know a lot of stuff – like foreknowledge stuff – so I can give you a heads up about stuff that's coming. There's just one little thing I need your help with…"

They didn't answer me then, probably thinking all manner of awful things about how I must have fallen prey to Crowley's bad influence or some such… I was busy trying to figure out what would happen next.

It wasn't until later, when I was stiffly asked to take a picture of everyone that I realised, abruptly, what was coming.

"You can't," I insisted, a very clear tremor in my voice. "Ellen, Jo, I know this sounds crazy for someone you've just met, but you can't go. You'll both die."

They didn't believe me.

"Please, Castiel, tell them I'm not a threat. I'm human, I'm not a trick, and anyway Crowley will die if you guys don't manage to kill Lucifer, there's really nothing in it for me. I just don't want Jo and Ellen to die. I don't – I don't know if Sam and Dean will make it out alive without Jo and Ellen anyway."

I told them what I knew, everything, keeping out that the Colt wouldn't kill Lucifer because I didn't want them to think Crowley was trying to trick them, that I was trying to trick them.

They did not take it well.

"Look, you did your best, okay?" Jo said, looking scared and angry. "You warned us. If we don't come back you can tell Sam and Dean 'I told you so!'"

"Jo," Ellen began, reproving-

"There are hundreds of thousands of people out there depending on us, even if they don't know it." Jo continued, ignoring her mom's attempt at getting her to just let it go. "We're hunters. Every time we take on a case we look death in the eye, and this time is no different. So just keep your fortune-teller crap to yourself and let us do our jobs, okay?"

I admired Jo. I did. She was beautiful and fierce and brave – braver still because she was scared but determined to barrel forward anyway – and some part of me wished, in that moment, that I was half as brave or fierce or beautiful as her.

The rest of me, the greater part, that had only just met her and new she would not be coming back, that was the part that, when she was done talking, started to cry.

Not sobs, just watery eyes, tears spilling over as I turned on my heel and fled to the bathroom.

I tried to warn them. I did.

They left Bobby's house, Ellen and Jo and Sam and Dean, and Ellen and Jo didn't come back.

My stay at Bobby's after that was… received with mixed feelings. No wonder, I supposed. I was a demon's wife. Hardly trustworthy. Castiel, though – on the rare occasion on which he was there, I tended to gravitate towards him without truly realising it. There was something about him I couldn't put my finger on, but I trusted him. He'd been the only one to warm up to me, sometimes looking at me with a vaguely perplexed expression, but he clearly trusted me.

There had been something about him from the moment I met him, and it was a comfort to me whenever he did show up.

"How did a girl like you get mixed up in all this?" Bobby asked me one day (after days of silence because even though I had warned them, I was the girl that _could have _saved Ellen and Jo and_ didn't_).

"I sold my soul to a demon. So that I wouldn't be alone. So that I could try to make a difference," I replied numbly, making busy in the kitchen because Bobby really needed to watch what he ate. "I was attacked by a vampire. Of course I was terrified. And then… well, another run in with the supernatural after I made the deal really cemented the idea that I'd made the right choice."

I was quaking in my boots at the thought of meeting 'Loki' again – I wasn't sure what had happened there but as soon as I'd had the chance to slip away from the out of character trickster, I'd summoned my husband to the women's restroom for a quick escape. I wanted to save Gabriel. I knew that he didn't technically die, but I wanted to save him from everything that would come after for him.

Even if I had to brave him face to face to do it.

"Making deals with demons, kid," Bobby said, sounding a little sad and a little sympathetic. "That's no way to live."

I shrugged.

"I did my homework, worded everything to avoid loopholes. I'm happy. Crowley's fond of me, in as much as a demon can be fond of someone." I could tell he didn't believe me but I knew more about Crowley than Crowley himself knew I knew about him. "If it wasn't for the deal I would have been shunted from foster home to foster home until I was spit out into the world with no prospects for the future and no family to rely on. I know – believe me, I know – what hell is like. But the risk of someone finding out what I know and doing horrible things with that knowledge was too dangerous."

He was silent for a moment.

"How long do you have left?"

I didn't cringe. I didn't.

"Five years," I offered quietly, lightly, as though saying something that wasn't going to hang in the air between us until it was buried by a multitude of other things. I heard his sharp intake of breath over the sound of the water washing away the bubbles the soap had made while I washed the pot I'd used to make the stew. "It's alright. I'll do my best to end the apocalypse and what I know will die with me."

His expression was so full of pity that, despite still thinking I'd made a good deal, for a moment I almost felt a keen sense of loss at my own impending demise. I was terrified of hell. But that would come later.

"You're alright," he told me after several minutes of stretching silence. "You're a good kid, Mary Anne Matthews."

"Thank you, sir," I said, and for the first time since I'd arrived smiled free and clear and _happy_. "You're alright, too."

We got along much better after that, Bobby and I. Got along so well that Sam and then Dean warmed up to me, just from seeing how comfortable Bobby was around me. So, life at Bobby's improved. I missed Crowley. I was surprised at how much I missed Crowley. But it was easier staying with people that weren't deeply suspicious and constantly on guard around me, and the more they warmed up to me the more comfortable I got.

And then all of Apocalypse shit started going crazy and Dean was locked in Bobby's panic room and I knew that was my time to act so when they left, I gave Bobby a great big hug and a kiss on the cheek because I didn't know if I would be coming back (if I died, would it void my deal with Crowley since the terms included him protecting me?) and left in the Impala to save Adam.

This time, they listened. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything good to say.

They left me in a motel near the green room where Adam was being kept. I waited and prayed to Chuck (and wasn't a funny twist, praying to God that I knew 100% existed after selling my soul to a demon) that everything would work out, then they came back without Adam as I knew they would, and the three of us drove on.

And that, essentially, was how I found myself in my current predicament.

I had been separated from Sam and Dean. Thrown into the appetizer fridge along with some other random people intended to be pagan god snacks.

"Oh my god, we're all going to die," a woman wailed behind me, or maybe a man with a girly voice.

Sam and Dean were going to find us, I knew. But…

"We'll be fine," I tried unsuccessfully to offer comfort to her, "I have friends here. They'll come for us and get us the hell out of here."

Of course – I didn't know that. I _thought_ they would, but this was the first time I had actually been _at_ an event I'd tried to change.

I looked around at the terrified people around me – the way I had been thrown in, screaming for Sam and Dean, had set them all off. I wondered if they would still be saved. If we wouldn't be grabbed before Sam and Dean could come to get me.

I wondered a lot of things as I sat there, drawing my knees to my chest wishing I was back at Bobby's house, back at the mansion with Crowley. I wished I hadn't come. I didn't even know how the hell I was supposed to convince Gabriel in the limited window of opportunity I would have. Unless-

He could hear prayers. He didn't _answer_ them, but…

I fingered my engagement ring thoughtfully as I stood, glancing at the people behind me, and thought very hard about Gabriel and what would happen if I tried to summon him. I thought about him, about the way he looked when I met him and he introduced himself as Loki… and then, as though driven by an external force, I slipped the ring off and closed my eyes very tight-

_Gabriel. _The word itself, even just as a thought, felt heavy enough to crush me to nothing under the weight of the world. _Gabriel, Loki, Trickster, whichever name is least offensive to you. I have information for you, please just listen, I-_

"You ditched me."

I opened my eyes and felt my breath catch in my throat at what stood before me. His wings – the last time I had seen him I hadn't been able to actually _see_ them and now-

They were liquid gold formed in elegant, falling lines. Softly glowing, glimmering where the light touched them like the sun refracting off of a pool of the clearest, sweetest water. Wings. The wings of an archangel.

"How do they not know you're _you_?" I breathed, tearing my gaze away from his wings to meet his eyes and regretting it.

They were darker, troubled, not the intense someone-is-getting-smote colour they had been when I'd met him and barely escaped – no, his eyes were dark, and at my comment, grew darker still.

"What?" He asked, brow furrowing.

It was like it was only the two of us, no one else.

"Your _wings_," I whispered, barely registering what I was doing. I was only just self-aware enough to _try_ to keep my voice down around the other people. "How can anyone _miss_ them? They're-"

I tried hard to fight the urge to shiver.

"They're _beautiful_."

I cleared my throat awkwardly, trying to look anywhere but at his eyes, they were like flame, like molten gold, intense, blazing.

"I'm sorry. That's not why I called you here," I told him seriously. "Gabriel… you cannot fight your brother. If you do, actually dying would be kinder than what will happen to you in the future."

He blinked.

"What?" He asked, his voice cracking in a way that would have been endearing had the situation not been so dire. "Sorry, _what_?"

"I know things. Things that I shouldn't know, that haven't happened, that will." I was losing confidence by the second. "I wanted to warn you. So that you don't die… or worse."

"You… know the future," he stated slowly, drawing out each syllable as though trying to make sure we were on the same page. "You know the future and… you ditched me?"

Somehow, I didn't think we were on the same page at all.

"Please don't smite me," I requested with false calmness. I didn't think he would just kill me like it was nothing now, not at least knowing I was trying to save his life, but he'd been so unlike what I'd remembered from the show in that moment that I was convinced he wanted to end me.

"Smite you?" He parroted, looking taken aback. "Sweetheart, I think we're having some real communication issues here. You know the future but you somehow still thought I was going to smite you when we met – so you ditched me by pretending to go to the bathroom and dropped off the radar until now. Am I getting it right so far?"

I shifted my weight from foot to foot unsurely.

"Yes…?" I confirmed tentatively, trying to judge where he was going by his expression and failing. "I don't see what knowing stuff about the future has to do with it, though."

Somehow, he looked even more puzzled.

"Where do you see yourself in ten years, sweet-cheeks?" He asked calmly, patiently, as though we had all the time in the world and then, only then, did I realise the world around us, the people, were frozen. As though we had stepped outside the realm of time.

In ten years, I would be in hell. Not that I was going to tell an archangel that.

"I just came here to warn you," I told him carefully, studiously ignoring what he'd asked me as I kept an eye on his reaction. "I'm not here to cause trouble. I just want to go home, that's all. I don't want to go against you. Just to warn you."

He looked so lost a part of me I didn't know existed wanted to reach out and comfort him, to run my fingers through the sleek, soft looking feathers of his wings and promise him that I just wanted to help him. Well, I could do the latter, at least.

"I _swear_," I told him, willing him to believe me. "I just want to help you. That's all."

"Hey, hey," he said, his hands coming up as though in surrender even as his voice took on a more soothing note. "It's okay. I believe you, sugar. I believe you. And I swear to Dad I'm not planning to smite you anytime soon, okay? If you know about me then you know I only go for the high and mighty types. Mooks that really have it coming."

I laughed a little despite myself. Something about him set me at ease in a way only Crowley's presence was able to after so long together. Which was odd, because I didn't really know him but I figured it was just a Gabriel thing, sort of.

"You don't see anything regarding your own future, do you?" He asked after a moment, the look on my face no doubt giving away the truth. "That explains a lot."

He sighed.

"We don't really have time to get into all of this, kiddo, much as I'd like to just grab you and get the heck outta here, but I'm kind of tied up in the middle of something right now."

"Me too, Sam and Dean are my ride back to where I'm staying right now." I said easily, feeling more and more comfortable by the minute.

"Those two muttonheads?" He asked incredulously. "You're here with _them_?"

I cracked a grin at him, feeling so warmed by his presence that I felt somehow lighter.

"They're not that bad once they warm up to you." Even if that takes a while because they look at you like you're the Bride of Chucky. "They're kind of like my temporary guardians right now. Sort of. I've spent most of my time under Bobby's care though. Um, do you remember him?"

"Trucker hat, beard, tried to stake me?" Gabriel asked, eyebrows raised.

"That's the one," I confirmed, feeling bubbly for some reason. "He's really rather nice once you get past the gruff exterior thing."

Gabriel's wings were like a canopy of molten gold around us, warm and inviting.

"I'm sure," he said, and for a moment I had the strangest thought that he looked almost _fond_. "All right, sweet cheeks, this is how this is going to go. First, I am going to get _you_ outta here. Then, I'm going to rescue Sasquatch and Dean-o, and _then_ you and I are going to have a little chat, okay?"

I didn't realise he'd gotten so close until his arm pulled me into him and we disappeared with a _snap_.

The leaves were moving – it was the first thing I noticed when I looked around the parking lot outside. Time was moving again. We were no longer in his little pause bubble.

"Gabriel – promise me you won't fight Lucifer." The words left my mouth in a rush, desperate like I was standing on the edge of some great precipice and didn't know what would come. "Please. Promise me. Just leave if it comes to that. _Please_."

"I can't just let him kill them, sugar," he says almost apologetically.

My heart stuttered.

"I understand," I told him, I did, but… "I just… promise me you'll get _out_. That you won't get distracted and end up – just get out as quickly as you can."

Where this sense of urgency was coming from I didn't know, but it was distinct and tugged sharply at some centre of feeling I didn't know I had.

"Cross my heart and swear to die," he said cheekily, and then paused. "You got some way of getting back without us? It would be safer than staying here."

I considered it for a moment. I wanted to stay – maybe to watch this all play out, to make sure Gabriel was fine. Especially since I knew it was after this that he got… taken. But I hadn't been home in so long.

"Don't trust Loki. Don't let anyone use your grace. If you confront Lucifer and fake your death, you'll wish you had died," I warned him, my heart aching at the thought of what I knew could happen to him. "Take care of yourself, Gabriel. And tell Sam and Dean that I went home."

He nodded seriously and-

And left me stupefied in the parking lot wondering if I had only imagined the brush of his lips against my temple.

Shaking the (blasphemous?) thought away, I put my engagement ring back on the same finger that bore my wedding band, resetting the spell that would allow me to contact my husband in a manner similar to praying to an angel.

_Crowley? If you're not busy, I could use a ride home. _I thought, anticipation building at the thought of seeing him again. I'd missed him, more than I'd thought I would despite being so sure of how fond of him I was. _Operation Save the Flying Monkey is a success, I think._

"Let's get you out of here, then," he said behind me, and I whirled around in surprise before throwing my arms around his neck.

"I missed you," I told him, not expecting the words back. "It feels like I haven't seen you in months."

An enigmatic smirk was my only answer – and then his hand was on the small of my back and we were gone.

Gabriel teleported the Winchesters, car and all, back to the other guy's place they informed him the girl (_Mary Anne_, he thought, her name was Mary Anne), was staying at. Bobby's place, they stressed, seeming rather irked at his dismissive attitude right before he snapped his fingers and they were suddenly right outside the house.

She had dropped completely off the radar again. There and then suddenly nothing. Thankfully, he had thought, he knew where she was this time. Except that, apparently, he didn't.

When he repeated her message to the Winchesters, their faces cleared. 'Going home,' she had said. They didn't seem to like it, but they obviously thought her safe enough where she was.

Gabriel was _not_ a happy camper when he found out precisely where she went and with whom, although Sam wisely kept mum about the _why_.

"Crowley? What's wrong?" I asked, pulling the sheet up over my chest as I looked at him in confusion. "Are you alright?"

He'd stopped. In the middle of – well, point being he'd stopped.

"It's different," he said, shocking me completely. There was only one thing he could be talking about, after all.

My soul… was different? I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Its purity for lack of a better word had been a kind of comfort and source of pride for me once I'd realised that it was somehow resisting the taint of having sold it to a demon and committing what was probably a variety of other sins under his influence. To hear that he had succeeded was – well, suddenly it was disheartening.

"Mary Anne," he said, his voice low and husky and teetering on the brink of anger. "Is there anything about yourself you neglected to mention when your contract was made? Anything at all?"

I blinked.

"No, of course not," I said earnestly, needing to him to believe me. Maybe I hadn't revealed the full extent of my knowledge but that wasn't what he was asking. "I told you everything about me, about my situation. What's wrong?"

He was elegant, my husband. Not someone to resort to base, physical menace when I could feel the considering, almost thoughtful look like a hand gripping, bruising the tender skin of my throat.

"It's no coincidence, _darling_, that your plan to rescue your overgrown pigeon goes off without a hitch and you come back with a soul that's near _blinding_," he said, his voice like ice, the hint of a snarl behind the words like the whisper of the Pit backing him. "With a soul blazing with _an angel's grace_."

I stared at him in horror.

"I don't-" I began, willing him to understand. "I don't know anything about that. I swear I don't. I only talked to him for like, five minutes tops."

"Honey," he said, "darling, _sweetheart_. Why do I have the feeling you're going to make me regret making a deal with you one day?"

I took in his dark eyes and dangerous expression and just-

"Never. I'll do whatever I have to to make sure you don't."

I wasn't sure how, or what was happening with my soul and Gabriel in the first place, but I didn't want Crowley to regret our deal. Anything else, just not – not that.

"See that you do," he murmured, and then lowered his mouth to mine and it was like I was selling my soul again, or something infinitely more precious this time.

I shivered at the sense of foreboding that trickled down my spine and then there was no room for thought, just me and him and falling over the edge. Only this time, something in me ached. Like there was something missing that hadn't been there before.

The thought was terrifying.

_To be continued in Guardian Angel._


	2. GUARDIAN ANGEL

_Guardian Angel_

It took a week exactly for me to break. Exactly. Down to the hour, down to the minute. A week _exactly_. I'd had contact with Sam and Dean, so I knew that they'd made it out alive and that Gabriel had spirited them all away rather than fake his death. Lucifer was now aware of his brother being alive, but that couldn't be helped.

There was no need for me to contact Gabriel to make sure everything had worked, but…

I just couldn't help myself.

I twisted my engagement ring off my finger and prayed.

_Gabriel, I – I just wanted to make sure you were alright,_ I thought, my heart pounding a feverish tattoo against my chest. _If you could just give me a sign, or-_

"You ditched me again," he said lightly, and I whirled around, nearly tripping over myself, he'd startled me so badly.

For all his easy stance, he looked imposing, even with his golden wings tucked comfortably against him, some feathers so long they almost skimmed across the ground like trickling water ablaze with the light of dawn.

He noticed my eyes fixed over his shoulder, knew what I was looking at, and shot me a knowing look that was oddly gentle despite the mischief there.

"Hello, Gabriel," I greeted him, fidgeting anxiously under his gaze as I tore my eyes away from his wings to meet the soft honey ones of his vessel. "I'm glad to see you're okay."

The corners of his mouth turned up in an impish smile that made me feel warm.

"I should say the same to you, missy, considering the company you keep," he said meaningfully, and my blood ran cold. "Shacking up with a demon, really, sugar?"

I took a step back.

"It's not what you think," I told him nervously. "I'm not working with them or anything, I just-"

Something in me was burning to tell him the truth but my intuition was screaming that he wouldn't take it well. And I had promised Crowley that he didn't know anything, that it would be totally safe. Safe for _him_, that he wouldn't have an angel (an archangel, though I didn't mention that) on his tail. I'd _promised_. How – how had he found out?

"I'm safe there. I don't have to take sides or anything, and I'm never asked for information past what I am willing to offer, and all I offer is just enough to keep the demon from harm. He's against the apocalypse anyway because he knows what L-Lucifer will do to demons in the end. So, I'm really not causing any trouble. Really, I'm not."

I tripped over his brother's name because I was so used to hearing it from Crowley and Sam and Dean and Bobby, but I wasn't sure if it was – irreverent or inappropriate or something to actually say it instead of 'Satan' or 'the devil' or 'your brother' or something.

"I believe you, honey bunch," he said easily, throwing an arm around my shoulder. "Well, I believe _you_, that _you_ aren't causing any trouble. Your demon buddy, though – he's knows his stuff."

He grinned, savagely, dangerously, and yet somehow I still felt safer than I did at home in the mansion under my husband's protection.

"Even though I knew where it was, courtesy of those chuckleheads, I couldn't get in. Got some serious anti-angel mojo going there, sugar." He was so _close_. "But that's not all, is it. How'd you drop off the radar like that?"

I shivered at his nearness, intending to keep mum on the subject but something in me compelled me to talk despite my better judgement.

"My rings. They're not _rings_ just, they're carved up with sigils on the inside of the band," I explained, shyly holding up my engagement ring so that he could inspect the tiny, tiny laser-cut sigils etched into the band. They weren't even distinguishable to me but I was sure an angel would have better eyesight than me anyway.

He took in from me and my heart seized up because what if he-

He simply turned it over, eyes narrowing at the etchings I knew then that he could see quite clearly and then handed it back.

"What about the other one?" He asked me easily – had his voice always been so smooth, so warm?

"Protects me from demons. Like possession," I clarified, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. "I'm too wimpy to get a tattoo."

He let out a short huff of laughter.

"Don't make those two muttonheads your standard, sweetheart," he advised me in an almost teasing tone. "They kind of take going to ridiculous lengths to a whole new level."

The night sky was clear and moonless, just stars shining brightly overhead, shining everywhere. I wanted to walk under the stars with him forever and nearly tripped in surprise wondering where the hell the thought had come from.

"I should go," I said abruptly, pulling away him despite – despite the odd urge. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that you – that you were whole and healthy and-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, honey bunch, _go_? You gonna ditch me again?" He asked playfully, but there was something serious behind his voice that made my breath catch in my throat.

"Sorry to cut things short," I apologised, thinking that – surely I had it wrong. He hadn't meant-

"You can't go back there, sugar," he said gently, making me take another step away from him. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but it's just not safe. You're meant for something real special. You don't know it yet, I know, but trust me, your place isn't over there."

I swallowed hard, torn between believing him on some base, instinctual level and listening to the rational part of my mind that said my place was with Crowley, who I trusted, that _we had a deal_.

"That's my home. I'm safe there," I told him, keeping an eye on his face as the first flicker of frustration touched upon it. "I'm sorry, Gabriel, and I'm grateful that you're trying to help me, but I'm really, really fine."

I slipped my engagement ring back on surreptitiously, wanting nothing more than to beg for Crowley to pick me up because this had been a mistake (no matter how right it felt).

"There are things you need to know, Mary Anne," he entreated, his fingers twitching at his sides as though he were itching to reach out. "Things I'm thinking are a little too heavy for you right now, but they're important. It's not safe for you there, sugar. It's only a matter of time before your demon figures out that something is different – and it won't be pretty when he finds out what."

A chill ran down my spine.

"Even so," I said, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other. "It's my home. And I would like it very much if you would let me go without any trouble."

For a moment, I thought he was going to just, take me away.

"Mary Anne, this is a mistake," he said at last. "Going back there is a mistake. Trust me, sweetheart."

I did. More than I should have knowing what he was and what he had done, despite my loyalty to the demon I had married.

"Please let me go," I begged, surprised that it had come to that. I was surprised that I was asking in the first place, but then… I _wanted_ to do as he said not because I didn't believe that I was safe but because something in me said to go with him, to follow Gabriel.

He looked torn, perplexed, and almost hurt all at once. Like he couldn't understand why I wanted to go back so badly, as though he had hard evidence that I wanted to stay. I wondered if he could tell by looking at me that part of me wanted to follow him, to go with him anywhere he might lead. He took in my pleading expression with a sharp grimace.

"I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, sweetheart," he began, his wings ruffling in reaction to something I couldn't quite read in his face. Something like agitation, I thought, but not exactly that. "I just – Alright, how about this?"

He made me promise him that I would call him again, that I would see him again. I couldn't have stopped the words from coming out of my mouth had I tried. Of course I'd promised him that. In that second, seeing him again was everything I wanted.

"And you listen to me, sister," he'd said before he disappeared in a flurry of wings. "If you ever need me, you call me. I'm serious. Promise me that too, Mary Anne. If you ever need me, you'll call me. You ever need my help, one little prayer and I'll come running. Flying. You know what I mean."

I'd laughed then, even though it felt like I was being torn away from him by something out of our control rather than by me, because I wanted to go home. I'd laughed even though, ridiculously, it felt like I was losing something precious.

I felt that keen sense of loss but didn't dare give in to the temptation of calling him until demons attacked the mansion and everything was chaos.

"Time to go, Annie," Crowley said sharply, looking quite ruffled, with-

"Are those pins?" I asked, perplexed. "Were you having your jacket fitted?"

He took my arm and started pulling me down the hall to one of our secret passages, cursing as we went. I never got an answer although the uneven length of the sleeves told me all I needed to know. He'd been having a home fitting – if he was running now, there was a good chance that we were under attack and… that his tailor had been eaten, I thought nauseously.

I hear shouts coming from right around the corner and, with a sinking heart, wondered if we would manage escaping. It was possible that Crowley, who had barely escaped with his life originally, might have been too long delayed in retrieving me to-

"Are we going to make it?" I asked quietly, trembling because I just didn't know.

He said nothing, looking quite put out with the whole situation and… beneath the veneer of a businessman having to manage a disastrous setback looked quite apprehensive.

"Crowley," I murmured, huddling closer to him until the noise subsided and he started pulling me along again. "If we can get outside… I could call him."

I'd told him about the angel that offered me a life debt. Because I'd saved Gabriel's life and he'd offered the same back. (What else could he have meant?) He knew exactly who I was talking about.

"And get roasted in my meat suit?" He asked sarcastically, but his voice was hushed too, highlighting the danger. "Don't think so, darling."

Whatever words I would have said in response were ripped away from me _screaming_ when something grabbed my arm and yanked me back in the direction we had come. I cried out for help – it felt as though the demons dragging me away from Crowley were trying to tear it clean off.

Crowley swore and took hold of a nearby candelabra and bashed it into the head of the demon clawing at my arm, at my shoulder, at my _throat_-

He hauled me along at double speed, looking quite harassed as he checked behind us a few times with a grimace of well-justified paranoia. I tried my best to hurry along with him but I was hardly the most fit girl in the universe and I was quite out of breath. Out of breath and bleeding from numerous mostly superficial scratches. My arm, I knew, would be black and blue by the time I woke up in the morning. If I woke up, I thought grimly, picking up the pace.

The sound of heavy footsteps – a multitude of them – chased us faster, further.

"Call him," Crowley snapped, far past being put out. "Have your angel hold them off."

Hearing him call Gabriel _my_ angel made blood rush to my face. Not for the presumption – but because I _liked_ it.

"Okay," I said breathlessly, and wondered if he knew, if he could hear how my heart was thudding in anticipation now, not fear and exertion.

He fumbled at the keys as he tried to unlock the heavy wooden door that marked the end of the tunnel. Almost there, I thought desperately, fingering my ring anxiously as I waited to get clear of the property boundary.

He got it open and before I took a first, greedy gulp of fresh air I took off my engagement ring, dropping it onto the grass by accident in my haste, and prayed.

_Gabriel,_ I thought desperately, _there are demons, I don't know how many, and if you're not busy and don't mind smiting the fuck out of them so that we can get away that would-_

The world lit up in brilliant white.

"He's here," I murmured, lost in the beauty of what I was seeing. White light so bright it was blinding, beautiful, searing, like life-giving flame that touched the soul.

Crowley took a hasty step back.

"Time to go," he said forcefully, a touch of panic giving the words sharper meaning as he raised his arm to shield his eyes.

Archangels were _fierce_.

The light around us grew brighter and brighter, like a brightly burning star manifesting right in front of us, blazing, breathtaking white.

Archangels were _absolute_.

I distantly felt Crowley's hand grab my arm and start tugging me away, distantly, because I was completely, utterly transfixed.

Archangels were heaven's most terrifying weapon.

A weapon that Gabriel had put in my hand to wield against danger like a sword when he'd told me to call him if I needed him. He'd promised me his aid, had offered me the wrath of one of the oldest beings in existence as my own defence.

I had been attacked and I had called him, like he'd asked me to.

And he came.

I was still watching, captivated until the very moment Crowley teleported us, and even then, my captivation lingered.

When my husband teleported us away, I'd felt as though something had been gouged out of me, almost losing my balance when we appeared somewhere – elsewhere – I wasn't sure where. All I could think of was how badly I'd wanted to see Gabriel, how badly I _needed_ him there with me. I was afraid, I was hurt – even if not badly, even if the scratches and bruising were something the Winchesters would just shrug off – and I wanted Gabriel even more than I wanted to be in the safe embrace of my husband.

I wondered what the mansion that had been my home for five years looked like now. It was no doubt completely in ruins. I wondered if there would be anything left, if Gabriel tore it down, if he killed every one inside or just scared them off as he fought the demons that had stumbled into the courtyard and turned to flee when he first began to take shape.

We had been attacked by demons. And Gabriel – though he could have just arrived in front of me with a snap of his fingers, had come in his true form to smite the fuck out of everything threatening me. He came. I'd called and just like he had said that night, had promised – he came.

A demon had attacked me, and in the words of Castiel, the most fearsome wrath of heaven had rained down upon that demon. The very thought made me shiver in something I couldn't name.

"You're going to be staying with the old coot for the foreseeable future," Crowley decided, breaking me from the thought of Gabriel that threatened to swallow me whole, annoyance still written on his features. "I'm going to have a little chat with the Hardy Boys…"

I almost pitied Sam and Dean because my husband looked right spitting furious about having his home ransacked and his tailor eaten. He was also disgruntled at having to walk around in an unfinished suit jacket and unhemmed trousers. _Displeased_ didn't cover it.

Bobby was surprised to see me. And by surprised I mean he had no idea I was going to randomly knock on his door in the middle of the night having been abandoned in his salvage yard with simply the expectation that he'd take me in – not my expectation, of course, but Crowley was simply that sure Bobby wouldn't turn me out.

He didn't.

I'd thought… I'd thought that Gabriel would come to me afterwards. To visit, I mean, not… _to me_ to me. I just thought that I would see him. After. At least to thank him.

But he didn't come. Even though I was without my ring and on his radar again. Crowley came back before Gabriel came and made a deal with Bobby for his soul.

I stayed with Bobby despite desperately wanting to go with my husband, to go back to safety and comfort, to his attention and my books. Bobby had been very kind in taking me in and I wasn't ungrateful – of course I wasn't. I did my best to pay him back in any way I could, mostly by cooking and doing housework. I felt guilty for mooching off of him like I was, but I hardly had any other options. He wouldn't take the wad of cash Crowley had given me for my expenses, so being handy around the house was more or less all I could do.

I think he could tell that I was getting rather stir-crazy because he lent me the keys to a truck and asked me if I would pick up the groceries. The prospect of getting to leave the salvage yard was like an early Christmas, not that it was so bad there. I'd just missed the freedom I had at home.

"Get out of here, kid," he said, waving his had dismissively. "Pick me up a six pack and whatever you need for dinner."

There was plenty of food in the fridge and I knew he wasn't out of beer. The gesture wasn't lost on me even as my heart skipped a beat in excitement.

"Are you sure?" I asked, feeling a bit ridiculous. He wasn't my father – but I still felt like I needed permission, which was just silly. I was a grown woman, not even counting the experience from my other world life.

"Yes, I'm sure," he grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Idjit. It's just a run to town."

It meant so much more to me than that.

"Thank you, Bobby," I said earnestly, accepting the keys from him with a bounce to my step. "I was thinking of making pie tonight. Have a preference?"

He thought for a moment before deciding on blueberry, mainly because he had liked it the last time I made it with that sweet cream stuff for pouring over it.

"You got it!" I said enthusiastically, beaming at him.

So I went to town by myself and of course everything went to hell.

"Father," someone simpered – _somewhere_. Everything was so groggy… "We have the girl. Snatched her right from under Crowley's nose. She _reeks_ of angel."

I fought to open my eyes, the barely discernible voices growing clearer with each passing moment. Wherever I was, it was goddamn _freezing_.

I touched my fingers to the back of my head and was alarmed to feel something sticky and wet.

"Bring her to me."

When I drew back my fingers, they were covered in dark, deep red.

"Get up," someone commanded, kicking my side. "We know you're awake, so get up."

Pulling myself together was easier said than done. I shook as I forced myself to my knees and the up on wobbly legs.

I panicked when I remembered that I'd lost my engagement ring, and with it the ability to summon Crowley.

I was shoved forward down a narrow hall and then-

And then I saw wings of brilliant, brilliant light, the fairest, the most beautiful wings in all creation, damaged as they were. A sight that took my breath away.

And if the sight of only his wings was breath-taking, then there were no words for the way his grace was clear and present in his face, transcending the deteriorating body of Nick with terrible beauty and radiant might.

"Well isn't this a surprise," he murmured, his eyes fixed on me in a pensive manner. "You did well to bring her to me."

I couldn't look away.

"Leave us."

My breath hitched in my throat as I took a step back.

_Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel, _I chanted to myself, needing to contact him before whatever was about to happen that would no doubt end in my death. _I'm so sorry. I wanted to thank you so badly and I wasn't brave enough to call you to do it. I'm sorry. I'm with your brother now. I don't think-_

"There's no need for fear… Mary Anne," he hummed thoughtfully, moving closer in slow, languid steps, like that of a predator at ease. "That is your name, correct? Mary Anne Matthews."

_Fuck_.

"Such language," he murmured, even as my back hit the wall and I had nowhere to run.

I wasn't sure what it was I had done to appear on his radar, but it couldn't end well.

_I'm so sorry, Gabriel_, I thought desperately. I wished I could have seen him one last time.

"He won't come," he said softly, so close to me now that he was able to lift his had to brush his fingers across my cheek curiously. "My little brother won't come. He won't even know you're here."

I wanted to turn my head to avoid looking at him but I couldn't. I couldn't look away.

"Nothing to say?" His gaze was thoughtful still, not offended, just… scrutinising.

"I don't even know why I'm here," I said after a moment, shivering at his touch. "And no amount of begging will save my life. What is there for me to say?"

His brow furrowed, expression growing sombre, pensive. I wondered what I had said that had prompted the change – I literally hadn't done anything to hinder whatever he was doing, short of letting Crowley know some things like 'the apocalypse is coming' and 'you need to build a safe house because the mansion will be attacked I don't know when but we'll be overrun.' Nothing that would have truly crossed him.

"Has my brother so poisoned you against me?" He asked after a moment, his silky tone fraught through with the first warning signs of… displeasure. "You have nothing to fear from me, Mary Anne. In fact… there is nowhere on earth where you could be safer than you are here with me."

I managed to turn my head then, a short laugh bubbling up in my throat.

"Forgive me if I find that hard to believe." I couldn't believe the words had come out of my mouth but it was too late to take them back. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. "If I have nothing to fear from you, then, please let me go."

If anything, his curiosity and disappointment seemed to intensify.

"You truly fear my presence," he murmured, the corners of his mouth turning downwards in displeasure. "You wish to leave."

"Gabriel has nothing to do with that," I blurted out, wishing to God that he would take three steps back and keep going, until he wasn't nearly pressed against me (until I wasn't torn between wanting to run and wanting to stay precisely where I was). "I told him not to fight you. He's never spoken of you otherwise. I don't understand what you want from me, but it's not Gabriel's fault."

He abruptly frowned, tilting my face to the side and-

His fingers gently skimmed over the place where the demon that had mugged me had hit me and, like mine, came away with dark, semi-coagulated blood.

The level of calm that settled over him was eerie – downright terrifying. He simply snapped his wrist and then – nothing hurt anymore. Not the ache in my side from being kicked nor the throbbing headache and tender, bruised and bloody scalp.

"Thank you," I uttered so quietly that even him standing so close would have barely been able to hear me. "I – thank you."

His head lowered so that his mouth was angled over mine and my heart was fit to burst out of my chest at the sudden realisation of how _unthinkable_ the current situation was.

"Are you this opposed to my brother?" He questioned aloud, the words so calmly and curiously delivered that I wasn't actually sure I was supposed to answer it. "So… _resistant_?"

I fought the urge to squirm where I stood, desperate to get away from his body a scant few inches from mine, his face so near to mine I could feel how _cool_ he was down to the very air he exhaled.

"Please," I begged, even though I said I wouldn't, even though I knew there was no point. "I won't cross you and I'm of no use to you. If you're not going to kill me, just let me go."

"Let you go?" He repeated, sounding almost amused, as though he found the idea quaint. "There is no place left on this earth for you save for here now that you have been found. You won't be going anywhere, but you can take comfort in the knowledge that I will be merciful to those that have cared for you until now. My wayward brother included, provided he does not stand against me."

He turned his head so that his lips skimmed over mine and for a moment my heart stopped.

"No… with you here I don't think he'll be a problem, do you?"

_To be continued in Guardian Angel II._


	3. GUARDIAN ANGEL II

_Guardian Angel II_

The longer I stayed, the less I wanted to leave. A worrisome trend with these angels. It had been a subtle difference with Castiel, then an intense, dizzying need with Gabriel, and now, every rational instinct screaming for me to run was just a leaf in the face of a hurricane.

"Now, I think someone has something to say to you," Lucifer hummed, sounding like a school teacher mediating an incident between kindergarteners. "Go on."

I couldn't even look at the demon that had brought me to Lucifer as he apologized, and certainly not as Lucifer made him scream in agony, trapped in his meat suit, before swiftly killing him in a show of blazing light.

I couldn't look but it didn't stop me from leaning into the brilliant feathers like falling stars that made up the wing curled casually around me, didn't stop me from taking comfort from Lucifer even though he was the reason-

"You can call him, you know," he said idly, dropping onto the couch beside me, looking at me languidly, completely at ease. "I'm sure he'd rather get here sooner rather than later."

I swallowed, feeling the brush of feathers across my shoulder as he settled in.

"I…" He was so close to me I couldn't think straight. I felt like I was drowning but instead of air I just wanted him. "You won't hurt him. You promise you won't hurt him. Or – or try to force him to join you or anything like that. You swear on your grace you won't so much as touch him, that he'll be perfectly safe and free to do what he wishes."

"So long as he doesn't oppose me," Lucifer replied easily, "yes."

Gabriel _would_ oppose him, though. He would. He did in the show for humanity, and… and I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk his safety. I just couldn't.

"But you want to," Lucifer – _Satan_ – supplied 'helpfully.' "You could warn him, if you wanted. That his big, bad brother has you all to himself."

My face heated up at the insinuation in his wording.

I did want to, though. Everything in me wanted desperately to call Gabriel. He wouldn't leave me alone with his brother. I wasn't sure why, but I believed in him. I believed that if I called him he would come, even if it was to save me from Lucifer. I wasn't sure what the devil wanted with me, but he seemed content enough, almost amused, to keep me with him in the building his demons had warded for him. The wards didn't keep angels out, obviously, but it kept it from being found or spied upon. Lucifer had given me the address of the building so that I could call Gabriel. He'd just given it to me, no strings attached.

I trusted him despite every shred of common sense I possessed screaming otherwise. I did, and it disturbed me. But I trusted him to keep his word to the letter and I didn't want to risk Gabriel on the hope that Lucifer hadn't left himself any loopholes that allowed him to-

"What do you want from me?" I asked quietly, feeling distinctly uncomfortable in my own skin, miserable at how I shivered when I felt his wing shift like a caress over my shoulders. "I don't understand why I'm here or what use I could possibly be to you."

I hesitated a moment.

"Or Gabriel." The thought that maybe he mistakenly thought he could use me to get to Gabriel had struck me before, but it didn't seem to fit in with everything he was saying. "Gabriel has been kind to me but it's only because I tried to save his life – a favour he's already repaid."

A sly, playful smirk played over his features; for a brief moment, I was entranced.

"You should ask _Gabriel_ that," he said idly, and it was with a sinking feeling that I realized that no matter what I said or did, he would eventually win and I would call Gabriel and they would have the talk I expected was Lucifer's end game in encouraging me to call.

It didn't take long after that before I was walking stiffly out of the building with Lucifer himself casually strolling behind me, wishing desperately to make a run for it and not daring to.

_Gabriel, if you can hear me, wait. Listen first,_ I prayed – and prayed was the right word for it, because he'd just arrived while I was in the middle of trying to contact him before and I didn't want him arriving unaware. _I am not presently in any danger. I don't know if you heard me earlier or not, but I'm with… your brother. Lucifer. I don't know what he wants other than he seemed to want me to call you but he won't let me leave. He promises not to hurt you or anything but I don't know if I believe him. I'm as safe (according to him) as can be here, but I couldn't bear the thought of him hurting you because you choose not to side with him or something. I don't know. That was all. You can do what you will with that…_

It took him milliseconds. Probably less than that.

"Luci, I'm home!" He sang sarcastically as he dropped his arm over my shoulders, pulling me in close as a wing followed suit. Despite the easy motion and his nonchalant tone, his expression was schooled into a façade of cold indifference. "You rang?"

"It's good to see you, brother," Lucifer returned just as easily – though I knew their last meeting had not been on friendly terms. "We have a lot to talk about, you and I. We have so much in common now… isn't that right, Mary Anne?"

I glanced back and forth between them helplessly, unsure what the hell I was supposed to say – because I sure as hell didn't know what he was talking about. Gabriel seemed to sense my confusion, taking my hand in his with a reassuring squeeze.

I almost tripped when deft fingers closed mine over something cool to the touch – my _ring_.

Bewildered, I fought to contain my expression. My ring. He'd brought me my ring. How he'd found it, I had no idea, because the last I had seen it, it had tumbled out of my hand onto the lawn and been lost forever. But he'd found it, had brought it back to me.

(Now all I had to do was work up the will to leave – easier said than done with Gabriel here as another staggering reason to stay.)

"I was surprised," Lucifer said softly when we were seated in the couch, eyeing the way I was sitting next to Gabriel with… with something. "Mary Anne here seemed to think that I was a danger to her when we first met. I thought you might have poisoned her against me… but you just haven't told her, have you?"

A muscle in Gabriel's jaw twitched in tightly reined in displeasure before he grinned, sunny and sardonic and a little too much 'fuck you' and too little 'handling it.'

It was hard to be around his brother. My heart ached for him.

"She's got a lot on her plate," Gabriel answered, shrugging irreverently. "Wasn't going to dump more on it."

Lucifer hummed, eyeing me lazily from where he sat.

"Michael will try to kill her," he said matter-of-factly, making Gabriel and I both stiffen. Gabriel's face was mutinous – like he knew deep down that what Lucifer said was true. A sly smile touched upon Lucifer's face. "Everything in you is screaming to stop him, and together, we can. We have a common cause, brother. Join me."

Gabriel hesitated – he wouldn't have even considered it on the show so to see him considering it now was alarming to say the least.

"You want him to join you in destroying my planet?" I asked incredulously, the fear and anger in my gut churning, spurring me on. "What do I have to do with any of this anyway? Why would Michael want to kill me? And if you're not going to kill me, just-"

I wanted to go home. To get away from the insidious influence of these angels, to go back to my life of reading books and watching television and singing along to my favourite music as loudly and ridiculously as I wanted in my room, in my house. I wanted to be surprised by Crowley coming home, to set down my book and lose myself in him without wanting eyes like sunlight though a glass of whiskey or – or deceptively soft-spoken words of seduction.

"No. If you're not going to let me go, just kill me," I told them, feeling reckless and stupid and desperate. Something was gnawing away at me on the inside and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take – all this mess. "I don't want to be some kind of – of flying monkey chew toy."

Gabriel looked like he had to try hard to choke back bewildered laughter and my cheeks flushed. Crowley had rubbed off on me, it seemed. I was bluffing of course; I was terrified of dying, although…

If I were honest with myself, maybe I was too much of a coward to acknowledge how I really felt, how I had felt since I'd been ripped away from my dysfunctional but sometimes okay family that I genuinely loved, from my best friend and favourite person in the world, who felt like the only person that was ever on my side.

"Wish it wasn't like this, kiddo," Gabriel said, sympathy saturating his voice. For a split second, I wanted to throw myself into his arms and just _cry_. His wing curled around me just a little bit, as though reacting to the thought. "I really do. There's just a lot you don't understand – hell, I don't even understand. You're kind of impossible, you know. One of a kind doesn't quite, uh, cover it."

I wondered, briefly, if he could hear what I was thinking like Lucifer could. Maybe not everything, maybe just the loudest, most concise and clear thoughts, but it was still discomfiting.

(Not as discomfiting as it should have been, and that realisation made me feel almost sick.)

"You coddle her," Lucifer observed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees where he sat, his eyes dark with some emotion I couldn't name.

"I'm on her side," Gabriel said, throwing his arm around me and pulling me close. "Our girl is… really, really in a league of her own. She needs some time to work through some things before we load her up with a metric tonne of ancient angel baggage, isn't that right, sugar snap?"

He shot me a meaningful look that I took to mean that he knew I had sold my soul to Crowley and that I shouldn't mention it. At all.

Based on what I knew about Lucifer and his feelings towards his demonic children, I considered that a wise decision.

"Anything else can be dealt with," Lucifer dismissed, eliciting a dark chuckle from Gabriel, which made his eyes narrow. "Unless there's something I should know… brother?"

I couldn't take much more of this. It was too much. Gabriel seemed to realise this because he pulled me in a little closer, still casual, still with the ease and irreverence that belonged to the trickster, but in a gesture that was comforting and brought warmth to my chest.

"Annie, honey bunch, why don't you head on upstairs while the grownups have a little chat," he suggested lightly, cheerfully, his hand on the small of my back a gentle guide up and off the couch. "You'll be back in no time. Faster than you can say '_this isn't the bathroom!_' Okay?"

I did everything I could to keep my thoughts under control, instead focusing on what they were talking about, what I had to do with anything and why I was there in the first place as I mechanically made my way out of the room and headed for the stairs.

The place wasn't warded against demons. Why should it be? You don't keep your own minions out. Of course demons could come and go as they pleased. And Gabriel - he had returned my ring to me. If the allusion to how I had run from him at our first meeting by pretending to go to the bathroom didn't clue me in, nothing could. With my engagement ring, I would be hidden from angels and, combined with my wedding ring, I would be able to summon Crowley.

He wouldn't be happy, of course, not at _all_, and I knew he would have questions that I wouldn't be able to answer, but he would come.

I slipped the ring onto my finger with a prayer – ironic, I know.

_Crowley_, I scarcely dared to think, scarcely dared to breathe. _Crowley, please get me the fuck out of here. I want to go home. _

A beat passed. Then another.

Then someone's hand was on the crook of my arm, gripping me tightly, and we were gone.

"_Crowley-_" My breath came in greedy, desperate gulps of air as I clung to him, my knees _weak_ in relief. "Oh my god."

"Not exactly, _Annie_," he returned, falsely pleasant. "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid."

The way the fury stole over him took my breath away.

"I have to find out from the Hardy Boys that you've been _kidnapped_ only to find you _hamming around with bloody Satan?_" He demanded, and I did the only thing I could even begin to think of doing in the face of his wrath – I kissed him.

I kissed him with all the desperation of a starving person, with my hands on both sides of his face, with a kind of voracious, hungering lust I'd never known the like of in my life. Was this what it was like to _want_? I'd never really initiated anything – but I _needed_ him now or I was sure beyond a shadow of doubt that I would go mad.

He took over quickly, which was all for the best because I didn't actually know where to go from there, and then it was him working his frustrations out against me in the most delicious way as I tried hard to forget everything except for his touch like hellfire on my skin.

By the time his ire had cooled, he had so thoroughly succeeded in granting my unspoken wish to forget that once or twice it had been touch and go trying to recall my own name.

"He wanted me to get to the other angel," I told him before he could ask, because I would tell him everything because this concerned both of us. "I think. Some demon came across me in town – he's dead now, Lucifer killed him – and kidnapped me. Then Lucifer seemed to change his mind about me and decided to, I don't know, _keep_ me or something."

I closed my eyes to the familiar, comforting sound of a drink being poured.

"Why?" Crowley asked, simply, calmly, almost an afterthought to the clink of glass that followed the preparation of his Craig.

"I don't know." I felt lost. "I haven't the foggiest. He just – kept me there. Killed the demon that kidnapped me and healed me and just _kept_ me. The only thing he seemed to want from me was for me to call my angel, but also made it seem like he couldn't care less. I called him and they talked about stuff I didn't understand and then my angel gave me back my ring and gave me a chance to escape."

I shrugged a little helplessly to myself.

"I hope he's alright." I'd run without sparing a thought to Gabriel and that guilt would gnaw at me until I saw him again, alive and well before my own eyes. "I didn't think twice. I just called you. What if Lucifer hurt him?"

Crowley didn't _scoff_, per se, under his breath but it was something heading in that direction.

"Will they be looking for me?" I asked him quietly, sudden realisation and mixed regret striking hard and fast. "Will they come after you, Crowley? I don't-"

I didn't think I could bear the knowledge that I had painted a giant target on his back – because of course Lucifer would find out. Of course he would.

"I think I can handle myself, darling," he dismissed flatly, tossing back the remnants of his drink with a bit more bite than was strictly necessary. "But you, Annie… what am I going to do with you?"

The answer, as it would turn out to be, was to return me to the keeping of the Winchesters – because where better to put me than beside someone Lucifer had ordered none interfere with? (Alright so maybe any good done by placing me with Sam was negated by placing me with Dean on that front, but we really were scarce on options, my foreknowledge really only gave me an edge while I was with them, since it all focused on them, and, well…

"Annie," He reprimanded sharply, the attempt unfortunately doing nothing to quell the growing hint of a grin touching upon my features. "Don't you dare."

"I'm not sure, Crowley," I allowed cheerfully, without even a hint of false contrition. "But I know what I'd do with Dean Winchester~"

I kept laughing even when he snapped his fingers to yank the sheet out from under me and sent me tumbling off the bed onto the floor.

It was the first time in a long time that things felt normal between us. Unfortunately, it was also the last time things would feel that way, so innocent, so free. Well, insofar as anything could be 'innocent' around Crowley, anyway.

"You wouldn't do anything with Dean Winchester," he'd scoffed, gazing down at me almost thoughtfully, a wicked smirk creeping over his mouth.

"No," I agreed wistfully, and then met his gaze with a sly look of invitation. "There's not much I wouldn't do with my husband, though…"

By the time he was done with me, I felt whole again. Or something like it, anyway, with thoughts of angels well, if not far, behind me.

And then I was with the Winchesters again.

"Bobby was really worried about you," Dean greeted me gruffly, keeping me at arm's length for a moment as though to assess the damage. (Damage I knew he wouldn't find because Lucifer had – had taken care of it for me).

"What happened, Annie?" Sam asked softly, his face full of empathy.

I wished Crowley hadn't just left me here with them again. I understood why he had – it made the most sense at any rate – but right now I just wanted to be with him again, at home. Or at some approximation of home.

"I got picked up by a demon," I offered after a moment, a delicate tremor running down my spine at the memory. "He took me before _him_. The devil."

Sam looked horrified.

"He didn't-" I began, and then wondered why on earth I was _defending_ him, to Sam and Dean of all people. "He claimed not to want anything from me and he didn't hurt me. Just killed the demon that clubbed me over the head, but that was it. Then I prayed and Gabriel showed up to save the day and helped me escape."

I bit my lip.

"I hope he's okay. I just – _left_ him there."

The guilt ate away at me like a kaleidoscopic array of ever-changing teeth, relentlessly and in new and inventive ways with each fresh intake of breath.

Gabriel, Gabriel, _Gabriel_. I wanted to call him but I was too much of a coward to.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, Annie…" Sam tried to soothe, looking a little bit bewildered by the level of concern I had for Gabriel. Fair, I supposed, considering their history and his lack of knowledge of ours.

I changed the subject. I asked about Bobby because I loved that old grouch (and because the thought of getting into any kind of discussion over _Gabriel_ or _Lucifer_ was profane, almost sickening). I asked about how the hunt for the horsemen's rings was going – and didn't that get a shred, considering look from Dean, because how did I know about that?

I knew about a lot of things, including the name of the pizzeria Dean would find Death at, though I pretended not to know the name of the city it was located in so that they wouldn't blame me for withholding information that would have spared Bobby from selling his soul.

"If Sam says yes," Dean asked abruptly, drawing insistent protest from the man in question, "does he make it?"

I hesitated.

"Dean, you can't just ask her something like that," Sam censured, sounding tired and hassled all at once. "It's not fair."

I knew the answer. I did.

"It's just a question," Dean defended roughly – though his eyes never left mine.

"I don't know," I tried, my voice cracking. I knew full well but I didn't want to be the one to deliver the news. "I don't know."

Dean was aggravated and Sam's arguing wasn't making it easier. They weren't listening.

"I don't know," I repeated, more insistently this time.

"-It's the only plan we've got, Dean!"

"Well if we know it's going to tank then we're better off starting from square one-"

"She doesn't _know_, Dean-"

"What am I supposed to do, Sam? Just cross my heart and hope for the best?"

"I don't know!" When I was done, I wouldn't even remember standing up. "I don't have foreknowledge of events that I'm present at!"

Silence reigned. My chest heaved with every breath, both brothers looked – taken aback to say the _least_. I myself was shocked. If there was anywhere on the face of the planet that I should not be, it should be in the vicinity of _Satan_ and _Michael _before their big prize fight. Lucifer because – well. And Michael because he apparently would smite me as soon as look at me if what Lucifer had told Gabriel was correct.

But I had just placed myself there regardless.

"You're – you're _there_?" Sam uttered, taken aback. Join the club, buddy, I thought, still reeling from my stupidity myself. "You're there when I-"

"Technically, she doesn't know," Dean answered for me, sounding frustrated, like he had too much on his plate and none of it was a bacon cheeseburger or pie. "Maybe she just doesn't know anything. She could be catching some shut-eye at Bobby's when it goes down. Or something."

I was struck with a sudden, _aching_ affection for Dean, who was so clearly grasping for straws it almost hurt. He didn't want me around Lucifer any more than I wanted to be around him.

(I did, though, I wanted to be with Lucifer very much, a feeling rivalled only barely by the need to _not_ feel that stomach turning hunger for his presence-)

"Chuck would know," Sam said suddenly, his gaze catching Dean's with renewed energy. "Think about it, Dean. I mean, he probably knows what Annie _is_."

The apocalypse was on us, and they still…

They still made time to figure _something_ out for me.

The stupefied look on Chuck's face when the Winchesters showed up on his doorstep again with me in tow was… really quite something.

"Sorry the place is, uh… a mess," he excused, scratching the back of his neck as he led me further into his home – abruptly scurrying over to the couch and swiping two no doubt questionable magazines and hurriedly moving them elsewhere.

I barely heard him because the blood was rushing to my ears as I wondered how on earth I was supposed to broach the whole 'I know you're God' topic without getting smote to fuck.

"I'm surprised," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly. "That Sam and Dean decided to bring you… here. They think you're a prophet, huh?"

I flushed, horrible and splotchy red.

"No, no," I denied immediately, "not a prophet. I don't see things like you do. I just know things. But – you know that."

I regretted it the instant it had slipped from my mouth-

"Huh?" Chuck asked, sounding confused. "Oh – I don't see you, Mary. You're like a wild card. Anything you touch is like – the butterfly effect. I don't see them again until you're in a different part of the picture."

I swallowed. Honestly, for a moment, I almost believed he wasn't… you know. Him. There was something familiar about him that set me at ease despite knowing how dangerous he was, something that made me want to stroke his hair back and hum some broken lullaby until whatever had him so on edge had passed – but he wasn't a child anymore, was he?

I blinked. Where had that thought come from?

"Oh, Mary," Chuck murmured, sounding so full of pity and love and concern that my heart leapt for joy that I didn't understand. "You were raised Catholic, right?"

I didn't-

"Yes," I found myself saying. "Why?"

His fingers brushed over my cheek, confident now where they would have been tentative before, affectionate and sure.

"You're a bit behind schedule, you know. I thought your demon would have figured it out by now and had you quietly dropped off. Of course I also didn't think you'd, uh, marry him. Anyway." He snapped his fingers and suddenly I wasn't in his house anymore, I was at the foot of a path leading up to a nondescript house…

"Go on, Mary," Chuck urged, his voice kind and patient beyond what I imagined I deserved. "Pop in and say hello. Don't worry, you'll knock his socks off. And then I'll bring you home. Uh, eventually."

When I turned around, I was alone.

_Hail Mary, full of grace,_ I murmured to myself, taking one step up the path, then another, then another. _The Lord is with thee…_

It was a funny thought but it gave me strength like it always did, so I made my way up the path one step at a time, until I was close enough to hear loud voices engaged in heated discussion-

_The Lord is with thee_, I repeated, letting my fingers brush against the doorknob before I grasped and turned it, cringing at the clicking sound it made, and opened it just enough to slip inside. It hadn't even been locked, I thought, although if my hunch was right, what use did angels have for locks?

"I will seek Revelation," a vaguely familiar voice announced, quieting the others briefly.

"A trick, Commander. You must not let this distract you now, at so crucial a time. Surely this new prophet is a falsehood. Look at its assigned guardian!"

Wings. Brown wings, grey wings, white wings, every type of wings in between. And there, in the centre of the room, were the greatest, grandest wings of them all, dwarfing the others present. Wings of pure, untainted white, imperious, towering wings that looked like they were formed out of wisps of cloud and the all the delights of the air.

I let loose a short scream when someone grabbed my arm and hauled me forward.

"A spy, Michael," someone intoned flatly, shoving me forward.

I stumbled, my heart stuttering against my chest, as I raised my face to meet the gaze of-

He was staring at me, looking utterly, completely _shocked. _

"You're not Michael," I said stupidly, even though I knew full well it was. I wanted to reach out and touch his wings – the strongest urge I'd had in all my limited wing experience. Come to think of it, I hadn't even been able to see Castiel's wings before, but now I could see the wings of every angel in the room – _focus,_ I told myself.

His wings drew back, making that asshole Zachariah duck out of the way.

"_What?"_

I laughed it off like a crazy person, which I was beginning to feel like.

(I wanted to bury my face into those feathers and see if it was like what I'd imagined using a cloud as a pillow would be like when I was a little girl.)

"Michael is totally played by Matt Cohen. You know, black hair, blue eyes, yea tall?" Actually I didn't know how tall he was but I was bursting with some kind of giggly emotion that was threatening to strangle my common sense. "Young John Winchester, whatever. You're _Adam_, his son. Which makes you, what, a Nephilim? Michael junior?"

Someone let loose a horrified noise at the accusation-

"Anyway, it's been great – really great – meeting you, not Michael, um, Adam, whatever your name is…" I was going to throw up all over the wings I wanted to snuggle into; fucking kill me now. "But wow, look at the time, I really, really need to-"

I blinked and was met with curious blue eyes in a face full of wonder.

_To be continued in Full of Grace._


	4. FULL OF GRACE

_Full of Grace_

They didn't find the devil in Detroit. Dean was so sure that they would – Sam drank all four gallons of demon's blood in preparation, but the house they were sure he was using as his hideout was a bust. They found a host of demon attendants, but the devil himself _was a no show_.

They were not detained but were instead given a message:

_Deliver Mary Anne Matthews to Stull Cemetery by noon tomorrow._

There was no 'or else.' The devil, Dean figured, didn't need to add an 'or else.' His reputation did all the threatening for him. This message coincidentally fell right in line with the eerie, repeated instruction Castiel picked up on Angel Radio: _Deliver the prophet Mary Anne Matthews to Stull Cemetery by noon or face the full wrath of heaven. _Whatever they wanted with Mary Anne, the boys agreed it couldn't be good.

Unfortunately, she had been missing from Chuck's house for a week.

They still had to try. If Stull Cemetery was where the big prize fight was supposed to go down and it seemed like both sides were trying to get Mary Anne there come hell or high water, then that was where they needed to go.

Sam motioned Dean over, grim and urgent.

"Not here," he mouthed, looking vaguely nauseous at the sight of what was presumably Michael wearing their father's young form.

Dean himself felt a little sick at the sight. What the hell had happened to Adam?

"It's just the Winchesters," a voice called flatly from behind them, making them jump in shock. Gabriel smirked, waving his fingers cheekily. "Hello, boys. Miss me?"

Castiel looked to Dean for some kind of sign. They had not been expecting _three_ archangels to be present… was he still supposed to throw the molotov at Michael?

"Where is Mary Anne?" Lucifer asked, deceptively softly, soothing, as he took a step forward. "Castiel? It was you that spirited her away from Michael, wasn't it? Where are you hiding her?"

Castiel looked taken aback – floundering.

"We don't have Annie," Dean answered for him, drawing attention away from the angel before he folded. "We've been looking everywhere for her, but no dice. What do you want with her anyway?"

Gabriel pursed his lips in displeasure.

"That's none of your beeswax, Dean-o."

"You say that," Sam began, annoyed, "but we have it from a prophet that she was taken by an angel. From _his_ house, right in front of him. Annie's been missing for a _week_. If you don't have her-"

"-who does?"

The last thing Sam remembered before someone's hand came down on his leather clad ass cheek in a resounding spank was Gabriel snapping his fingers and the words "grown-ups need to talk right now, you'll thank me for it later" ringing in his ear.

Mary Anne was really, _really_ fond of those muttonheads (and, he expected, of his now practically human baby brother). Better for them to spend a little quality time together cooling their heels in one of Gabriel's favourite, eh, _horizon expanding_ 'community service' experiences than to be smeared into finger-paint on a molecular level by his trigger-itchy big bro, right?

"Where did you send them?" Michael asked, distracted.

Gabriel didn't waste time with a fake, sunny smile.

"If she was taken in the presence of a prophet, it had to have been by one of us," he said instead, shrugging irreverently. "So, heaven."

Heaven. A daunting prospect. Maybe not for Michael, who stayed, but…

"Your negligence is astounding," Lucifer chastised Michael, clearly not above enjoying the opportunity to lord it over him despite the circumstances.

Gabriel wondered if old Luci would be piping the same smug tune when he found out that, until Mary Anne was seared into all their brains as a prophet and was thus made safe from all demons, she had actually been _living_ with one of his noxious little creations.

"Perhaps one of our brothers has found her and took her to Raphael for safe-keeping," Michael reasoned, ignoring Lucifer. (Because that, Gabriel scoffed, would go down great, of course). "Perhaps she is simply with her assigned guard."

The word 'assigned' nearly made Gabriel shiver – because only one being in the universe was capable of dishing out the orders like that. The big kahuna. The-

"Gabriel." Michael's tone indicated impatience. "Are you ready?"

Lucifer met Gabriel's eyes briefly and then he was brushing past Michael irreverently.

"Better make sure they're ready for me, brother," he said casually, rolling his shoulders in a comfortable motion, as though getting ready to sprint a mile. "I would hate to have to defend myself."

He took off in a frantic flurry of wings, making Michael swear and chase after him.

Giving Gabriel a minute to breathe. Heaven. After – heck, he didn't even know how long it had been. Couldn't remember. _Really, sugar snap? Heaven? You couldn't have picked, oh, I don't know, the Spearmint Rhino? _

Alright so maybe his Mary Anne (yeah, he liked the sound of that) choosing a place like the Spearmint Rhino was probably a bit of a long shot (he could dream, though, right?). In his defence, it still beat having the whole 'not dead' chat with his literal host of little siblings after a few millennia of going native as a pagan on earth by a fucking landslide no matter how you looked at it. Not that there wasn't much that could beat that impending reunion.

_Things I do for you, Mary Anne, sweetheart,_ Gabriel thought, cringing as he prepared to take the plunge and hoped that Luci had stolen the show being his dickish self.

(And cringed again because – Lucifer had had his back there. When Michael had gotten all 'commander' on him. He couldn't remember the last time Luci had actually had his back like that-)

Gabriel shook these thoughts away and squared himself to face his siblings.

And then, he _flew_.

**Elsewhere**

…_don't know, the Spearmint Rhino? _I heard, fuzzy and indistinct but still somehow like Gabriel in my head. _Things I do for you, Mary Anne, sweetheart_.

_Gadreel?_ I whispered to him in my mind, tugging gently, so very gently on a feather from the damaged wing the gargantuan creature draped around me. _Gadreel, I think… I think I just heard Gabriel. _

It was the strangest thing – I'd been dozing off, and then I heard something about the Spearmint Rhino. I mean it sounded like Gabriel no matter how you looked at it, but…

The construct of grace that was Gadreel shifted around me, a half-formed cross of pure grace and heaven's attempts at making him fit what I expected to see when I looked at him – namely, the vessel he hadn't inhabited yet. The result was partially drawn from my memories and still monstrously large, framed in tattered wings.

_He is coming_, Gadreel returned, making me cringe at the pressure of his voice in my mind. Feathers brushed my shoulder in apology… _Gabriel is returning. Michael is gathering the host. They say that-_

I doubted most prophets could feel what their guardian angel felt, but I'd been hidden practically _in_ Gadreel's grace since I'd arrived; I felt him around me and felt quite keenly the visceral reaction he had to whatever he was hearing over the Angel Radio.

_Gadreel?_ His wing around me was trembling. _Are you alright?_

He was silent. Then-

_Brother Lucifer is returning_, he said, flatly, without a trace of, of some kind of discernible feeling in his voice. _He is to be permitted to access to Heaven_.

The news was like ice water dumped down my spine.

_Lucifer_ was being welcomed into heaven. A coincidence? After I'd escaped him and Gabriel and gone on to _taunt Michael_ and found myself magically snapped here, the wild card, the only difference from the show? There was just no way. I still wasn't sure of my significance – I was sure Chuck had wiped something from my mind because I'd been with him, then suddenly at the house where Michael was, and then out of nowhere, mid-sentence, I'd been looking up at Gadreel's gargantuan face…

A thrill of fear set me shivering closer to Gadreel.

_Lucifer was looking for me before,_ I told him, trying to quash the desperation, the panic. _Demons captured me and brought me to him. Gabriel helped me escape him. _

I could feel his distress, greater now than it had been even at the mention of Lucifer. Demons in the presence of the prophet he had been assigned to guard. Even if it had been before his assignment – he was so fixed on being the model guardian angel that these past threats must have felt like a blemish on his record despite preceding him.

_Thaddeus was unable to find you,_ he offered, but that was cold comfort, because Thaddeus wasn't looking for me. _I will keep you safe, Mary Anne_.

I believed he would try, that was for sure. But… well, I wouldn't let it come to costing him his life. I'd learned a fierce kind of loyalty to this angel who was just so sad and desperate to redeem himself that I honestly would deck my husband if I heard him call him 'the original chump.' I wasn't going to let him face Lucifer for me-

(Especially not when, deep down, I knew that Lucifer wouldn't lift a finger against me. How I knew, I didn't… but I _knew_. I knew he wouldn't.)

_We need to get out of here_, I decided, shivering. I couldn't imagine being around Lucifer again. Not Lucifer or Michael or – or even Gabriel, despite how he had done nothing but help me so far.

(He had _considered_ what Lucifer was offering, after all – and now they were arriving together?)

Gadreel was silent and I instantly felt bad.

_I'm sorry. It's not possible, I know,_ I soothed, stroking his sparse feathers gently, so gently that to think about it would have my heart breaking for him all over again. _I'm just afraid. Ignore me. _

He didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.

_I will keep you safe, Mary Anne, _he repeated, and I could hear the suicidal resolve behind the words that I'd been afraid of. _My grace is much stronger than it was. This prison holds me only physically now. _He didn't hesitate. _Should there be no other option we will escape. _

I was shivering so he conjured a blanket for me to use – a soft, plush blanket taken straight from my memories of home with Crowley. I took it gratefully and settled into him, wrapped up tight in my new blanket, to try for a little nap.

I had a splitting headache, probably from all the stress of Lucifer and Michael and Gabriel arriving hopefully not to find me. I _tried_ to get some solid rest.

Fitful sleep won out.

The dreams of a prophet are a disjointed mess of images and sounds and people and happenings that are crammed into your brain in a way that forces perfect recall where there shouldn't be because it was never processed that way – as a cohesive whole, a narrative - in the first place.

I dreamt of falling and screaming and _my own brother_ casting me into the darkness and I dreamt of Sam and Dean and how they were never truly meant to be Lucifer and Michael's vessels – they were meant to be the start and end of everything, and they had been. The first seal, the last seal. The beginning of the end, and the ones that averted the apocalypse.

I dreamt of all these things in flashes of nonsensical thought, scenes so out of place and melding so seamlessly (incorrectly) together that I was Dean being cast down by his brother, I was Sam, the viceroy of heaven, I was _running_ from the end because I couldn't bear the fighting, running home – nothing that made sense, just a tangled web of people and places and things that had nothing to do with me, that I was being forced to live and experience regardless.

And then I dreamt that I was myself only not myself, shrouded in silver moonlight and the golden sun, wearing a halo of stars, finally, utterly _complete_ amidst tangled wings.

_Mary Anne, Mary Anne, you must wake,_ Gadreel commanded with urgency, making me snap upright with a shuttered intake of breath.

_Gadreel,_ I managed, trying to blink away the onslaught of – of memory.

_Mary Anne, Michael has commanded the host to search for you here in heaven,_ Gadreel intoned unsurely – because I was a prophet, his charge; what could Michael want with me? _Angels are scouring the personal heavens for you as we speak. _

A fucking manhunt in heaven. For me. Had my name been changed to Winchester?

(I could joke all I pleased but it didn't change the fact that I felt like I was going to be sick.)

We had no opportunity to say anything further because no sooner had I managed to get my unadulterated fear under control that suddenly the door to Gadreel's cell began to open.

_Gadreel-_ I began, burying my face in my hands as I tried to sink into his grace before Thaddeus could discover me, unable to do more than trust Gadreel to hide me as he had each time before.

_Fear not, Mary Anne,_ Gadreel offered, an eerie sense of calm falling over him. _I will keep you safe._

I trusted him. I did. With all my heart. Even so, I was utterly and completely taken aback at the searing white-heat of his grace, building, building, until his blade manifested in his hand after who knew how many millennia, fading out even as he cut Thaddeus down without even a split second's warning, without a chance to fight back.

I stared at him in shock, disjointed for a moment, my limbs not wanting to obey my commands as I moved to – to what? What could I do?

If I was in shock, it was nothing compared to his state.

How long, I wondered, had he been capable of that? Of overcoming and killing the angel who had tortured him, of freeing himself. Perhaps he simply hadn't been able to imagine an 'after' and that was why he hadn't done it, or he was still holding on to the hope that one day someone would walk into his cell and tell him he had a chance to redeem himself…

_Where must I take you?_ He asked, too calmly for someone who had just done the unthinkable. _On earth. We must go, now, Mary Anne. The others will look for him when he does not return. _

Mind scrambling, I hurriedly sorted through places that I could be taken to – but none were truly safe.

_Your vessel, Gadreel, _I started, _I don't know where he is, but if you just leave me wherever until you have him – I want to stay with you. _

We didn't know it, but Thaddeus had been sent with orders to question Gadreel on his knowledge of his new status as the guardian of a prophet, namely to see whether he was aware or not and if he was, could he find me, etc etc. Fortunately, it was the expectation that it was impossible for me to meet Gadreel that seemed to preclude the idea that I was with him, so no one thought to find me there, nor to find me with him once he escaped.

Gadreel, as far as they were concerned, was likely scouring the earth for the prophet that literally everyone knew was his shot at redemption, no doubt confused as to why he couldn't instantly locate her. Which worked out, because if they hadn't followed this reasonable train of thought, they might have been more inclined to hunt him down, getting both of us in a lot of trouble.

And so it was that Gadreel secured his vessel and then, after much roundabout explaining and cajoling, (because he didn't need to know I had sold my soul either), I finally got in contact with my husband. Which was an exercise in patience on both sides. A very trying exercise.

"I do not like this," Gadreel uttered deliberately, his hand twitching as though seeking his blade.

"Yeah, well you're not exactly my idea of a good time, either, chump," Crowley shot back, looking distinctly unimpressed and unhappy to be in the presence of a clearly smite-happy angel.

"Boys, please, you're both pretty." If there was too much fondness in the words for them to really be teasing, only Crowley recognised it – and it was obvious from looking at the peeved expression on his face that he didn't appreciate it.

"You're awfully cheeky today, darling," he murmured 'innocently,' as though he didn't notice how the intimate tone and the step closer he took set Gadreel on edge.

"I'll catch you up on what I know," I told him, a little breathless at his proximity. "Gadreel is my guardian. That normally doesn't entail him following me around, but… things were happening in heaven."

I swallowed.

"Lucifer was permitted into heaven by Michael's order," I told him quietly, wishing I knew something more than what I had understood from Gadreel to offer him. "There was a search for me and everything and I know Lucifer being around wasn't… wasn't a coincidence."

For a moment, I thought Crowley was going to kill me. It was difficult to explain how I knew, exactly, but I was sure. I had lived with him as his wife for five years. I knew him better now than I'd known the better half of the people in my previous life, my family even.

And I knew the only thing running through his mind in that instant was the carefully considered, all options, disadvantages, and advantages methodically, efficiently laid out question of was it better to kill me now and lose my soul to spare himself the possible trouble of what might come should he uphold our deal to protect me, or was my soul, to him deliciously, fascinatingly pure, worth the danger, the repercussions?

It might have been wrong, but part of me was warmed that he would stop to consider it, that he was actually thinking about it, despite what he would be up against. I was sure he was fond of me in his own way, and this proved it.

Otherwise, he would have cut me loose without a second thought.

"You, Mary Anne, are by far the costliest soul I have ever had the misfortune of _dealing_ with," he said after a moment, the double entendre perhaps lost on Gadreel but very obvious to my ears.

"Yours to deal with, though," I soothed quietly. "All yours. You won't cut me loose now, will you? Because I'm a package deal with an angel?"

He scoffed.

"If you think I'm letting go of a _prophet_, you're off your head, darling." He didn't even hesitate and I loved him for it. "No, the question now is what to do with you…"

The answer, as it would turn out, was very simple. Crowley's properties were warded against angels and thus not an option on account of Gadreel. Not that Crowley wanted to live in close quarters with an angel anyway. I had my ring back, though, so at least I would have the chance to call Crowley should the need arise – although Gabriel's knowledge of my rings and how they worked gave Crowley pause. He considered Gabriel a liability. I couldn't.

I couldn't believe that Gabriel would take my rings away. He'd helped me run from Lucifer, after all. My thought process was that, had he intended otherwise, all he would have had to do was keep the ring he had to prevent me from leaving. Instead, he gave it to me and provided me the opportunity to use it. If he'd really meant for me to stay, I couldn't see him just letting me do that.

Crowley gave me a tracking coin to keep on my person at all times in addition to the rings, so that if I were taken somewhere I wasn't supposed to be and didn't check in with him within a certain period of time, he could come and save the day. My hero.

Castiel had rebelled against heaven. He, I knew, wouldn't rat us out. So the best place for us came back around to traveling with the Winchesters. Ironic, because of how much trouble they usually got themselves into.

"Sam!" I exclaimed, surprised and delighted by the way he wrapped his arms around me, looking so relieved it was heart-warming.

"What happened to you, Annie?" He asked, holding me at arm's length briefly, looking me over for damage, for some indication of where I had been and what had happened to me there.

I shook my head, full to bursting with relief at seeing him alright, him and Dean, who watched us with tense shoulders, itching for my answer because he had to know.

"Nothing," I told them, trying hard to think of how to frame the words I wanted to use. "I mean – I got bounced around a little bit, met Michael – I'm sorry. He was in Adam."

I couldn't implicate Chuck, but I could give them that at least.

"No he wasn't," Dean said grimly, voice brimming with resentment before Sam could but in, expression growing even more tense, angry somehow. "We saw him at Stull Cemetery. He was wearing our dad from the past as his meatsuit."

My mouth fell open in a surprised intake of breath.

"He was… in John? You went to the cemetery where the prize fight was supposed to happen?" I repeated, heart racing as I tried very hard not to focus on the fact that – that Michael had changed vessels coincidentally after what I had said, instead glancing a little wildly in Sam's direction as I sought some kind of escape. "What about Sam – did he, was he with you?"

Sam looked miserable even as Dean's look turned a little more sharp, a little less concerned.

"The prize fight was supposed to happen at the cemetery?" His face was blank. "We drove all night to get there, Sammy and I, because heaven and hell were both dead set on anyone listening delivering Mary Anne Matthews to Stull Cemetery before noon."

I froze, and of course Gadreel took that moment to reappear, holding my ludicrously girly, soft pink overnight bag in his hand with a dead serious expression.

"Mary Anne, I have your things," he intoned in his dramatic fashion, glancing between me and Dean with a growing frown. "I should not have left."

I cringed.

"No, no," I soothed, fighting the urge to wring my hands helplessly. "Everything is fine. This is Dean, Dean Winchester. And Sam Winchester, his brother. They're my friends. They've been very good to me, Gadreel. It was kind of them to agree to have me along, even with Crowley trying to twist their arm about it."

Sam looked ready to object but Dean didn't, which made my heart sink. So my husband _had_ twisted his arm. He certainly hadn't looked happy but I'd hoped it had been with the situation, not with the idea of me joining them…

"You're, uh, Gadreel, right?" Sam asked awkwardly, heading Dean off before he could speak. He offered his hand out to shake before withdrawing it. "Sorry. Angels don't shake, right?"

Gadreel surprised me by reaching forward and giving Sam's hand a good shake. Down and up and done. Like a professional. Dean raised an eyebrow at the action, the tension in his shoulders easing a bit despite himself.

"Right, so not all angels are standoffish dicks," Dean muttered, turning his attention back to me. "Good to know. So what, Mr. Kotex over there is just tagging along for the ride?"

"Gadreel saved my life and is protecting me from demons and angels alike," I said firmly, my fingers twitching anxiously at my side for want of being closer to Gadreel than I was at present. The time in his cell had done a number on both of us, it seemed. "He's coming along to protect me."

It was a situation everyone was unhappy with – with me unhappy because everyone else was unhappy – and honestly, it wasn't until I was bundled in the back of the Impala with a tense Gadreel who was _not_ about hurtling around at sixty miles an hour in a metal enclosure that I thought that there was a joke in this whole situation that I was missing.

There was a reason, I was sure, I'd never read a fanfic featuring Gadreel sitting in the back of the Impala. Because it _didn't work_.

"How long until we reach our destination?"

"Are you sure this machine is safe?"

"I do not understand why we must travel with Sam and Dean, Mary Anne."

"Flying is more efficient."

I cringed as Dean didn't slam on the breaks, per se, but definitely stopped the car, on the edge of losing it.

"Dean-" Sam warned, no doubt recognising the twitching muscle in Dean's jaw for what it was.

"I swear to god, Sam," Dean began, having absolutely had it with Gadreel's constant stream of questions and high-handed criticism.

I buried my face in my hands and wondered what the rest of the trip would have in store for us.

By the time we reached our destination, Dean was happy to splurge on a second room just to get away from Gadreel (and me). To be honest, I was relieved to have an opportunity to just breathe away from him and Sam. I had spent days in Gadreel's cell with him and being out of that tiny space – tiny because of how gargantuan his true form was in comparison – well, it almost made me feel agoraphobic. Being tucked into Gadreel's side, basking in his grace, it had been the realest comfort I'd ever known. The way his grace was contained in his vessel was startling and discomfiting in a way.

It was a relief to be just him and I again.

"What will you do all night?" I asked him gently, hugging a pillow to myself and rather wishing I didn't still feel strangely cold without the warm presence of his grace.

"I will wait until you rise in the morning," he said simply, his brow furrowing. "No harm shall come to you, Mary Anne."

A fierce and terrible flush came to my cheeks. Surely he hadn't thought I'd been looking for some kind of, of _reassurance_ – had he? I wasn't sure what to think but I knew I desperately needed his thoughts to not have just assumed I'd been asking because I was scared or anything like that. I was worried for him. I was so very worried…

"No, I just don't want you to be bored," I forced myself to say lightly. He didn't notice. "Why don't you try watching tv or something?"

He looked puzzled by the concept of being bored and I realised he had been planning on spending the whole night just watching me. To keep me safe. Which was flattering, but uncomfortable as hell. I cleared my throat as though to rid myself of the thought and reached for the tv remote.

"At this time of night you could catch some Frazier or something. Learn a little about humans, even," I hummed noncommittally, then catching his expression and thinking the better of it. "Here, I always liked National Geographic as a kid, maybe you'll like some of the documentaries on there. About your father's creations and how the world has evolved from humans and stuff."

It took me a few minutes to find the channel number on the guide, but the documentary about the African savannah seemed to catch Gadreels' attention almost immediately which put an easy, content smile on my face before I finally gave in to the stress of the road and fell asleep right there with my hand on the remote.

And immediately woke up in – in the kitchen from my old house, from my old life, my heart racing as I thought _am I back?_

"Back where?" Someone asked lightly from behind me, making me jump.

"What-" I whirled around with wide eyes only to meet warm, whiskey-coloured ones and a mischievous smile. "Gabriel?"

"The one and only," he said, cutting a sweeping, theatrical bow before wagging a finger at me. "Now you, missy, are in big, big trouble. Where have you been for the past week, honey bunch? Believe me when I say me and my big bros have been driving all the little fledglings _nuts_ trying to find you!"

I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around his neck and hold him until the hint of forced cheerfulness in his voice was gone and he was just himself and real again – almost as much as I wanted to run away because the feeling was so odd and disjointing.

"Why are you looking for me?" I asked despite myself, just taking one measly step away from him because I couldn't bear to back any farther away.

He looked so sad and lost for a split second at the question that I wanted to beg for his forgiveness just to know what I had done to put that look on his face. It made my heart clench and my breath catch in my throat. It was _terrible_.

"Because," he said, shooting me a little winsome smile, trying to reassure me despite the fact that it had been _me_ that upset him- "Well, it's a long story, sugar snap, that all starts with an ancient angel bed-time story and a little word that, uh, carried over to human language from Enochian. You ever heard of the concept of _bashert_, sweetheart? Because it has a lot to do with everything, with you and me and my loser brothers that are probably still arguing about who should come visit your dreamland."

I knew without any shadow of a doubt that I'd never heard the word before in my life, and yet it was so familiar I could have sworn that I'd once known it-

"What does it mean?" I asked almost childishly, like I was in a different place, a different time, asking the kind of question I didn't know would change my life.

Gabriel contemplated this for a moment, before gently taking my hands in his as his wings settled around us like a shower of gold.

"Destiny, Mary Anne," he said softly, the word ringing with the kind of finality that lingered in the air long after the following hush had taken over. "It means destiny."

I stared at him with wide eyes, entranced by his nearness, by the soft glow of his golden wings around us, by his whiskey coloured eyes and the sheer, unadulterated fondness I saw within them-

-and then I woke up, shooting upright in bed, clutching at the front of my shirt like I was having a heart attack.

"Whoa," Dean said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. "You okay, Annie?"

I looked at him with a wild expression, for a moment not recognising him, and then-

"Dean?"

I'd been dreaming, I'd dreamt of-

"The one and only," he said lightly, his expression growing serious after a moment. "You okay, Annie? The winged freak didn't do anything, right?"

I blinked at him, confused.

"The – what?" I said, my brow furrowing as I slowly realised what he'd meant. "Oh my god, no, I just-"

Bashert. The word might as well have been carved into my ribs. I wouldn't forget it.

"I just had an odd dream is all…"

A dream that may or may not have given me the key to all the answers I needed.

"Right," Dean said, no doubt making his own assumptions but clearly relieved that I was alright. "Well, we were going to head out to get breakfast, if you want to come."

"That sounds great." It was a new day and answers would no doubt soon be forthcoming. An angel bedtime story? Who better to ask than my resident guardian angel? "Where are we heading?"

I was sure I had spoken to the real Gabriel in my dream. I was sure that the clue he had given me would lead me to the answers I desperately needed. Things were finally looking up.

It's amazing what a good night's sleep will do for you, isn't it?

_To be continued in Full of Grace II. _


End file.
